Plimpton Sieve Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I

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Plimpton Sieve Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I
George Gower Elizabeth Sieve Portrait.jpg
Artist George Gower
Year1579
Medium Oil on wood
Dimensions104.4 cm× 76.2 cm(41.1 in× 30.0 in)
Location Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C.

The Plimpton Sieve Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I is an oil painting by English painter George Gower dated 1579, and now in the collection of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. It is one of three near-identical portraits of Elizabeth I by Gower that represent the queen holding a symbolic sieve. [1] It was acquired by George Arthur Plimpton in 1930, hence the name. His son, Francis T. P. Plimpton, willed it to the Folger. [2]

Contents

Iconographic description

Three-quarter length portrait of Queen Elizabeth I holding a sieve, with a globe in the left background and the royal coat of arms on the right. The sieve represents her self-identification as the "Virgin Queen" by association with Tuccia, the Roman Vestal Virgin who proved her virginity by carrying water in a sieve. [3]

Inscriptions

The painting has three areas of text in yellow uppercase letters:

Other versions

There are at least two other versions of Gower's Sieve Portrait. One is known only through an 18th-century description by George Vertue. [1] The other measures 34 x 24 inches and is now in a private collection in Florida. [4] [5]

References

  1. 1 2 Strong, Roy (1963). Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I . Oxford: Clarendon Press. p.  66.
  2. "The Plimpton "Sieve" portrait of Queen Elizabeth I". Folgerpedia. Retrieved 13 May 2016.
  3. Pressly, William (1993). A catalogue of paintings in the Folger Shakespeare Library: "as imagination bodies forth". New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 330–331.
  4. Strong, Roy (1987). Gloriana: the portraits of Queen Elizabeth I . London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN   9780500250983.
  5. The Plimpton "Sieve" portrait of Queen Elizabeth I. 1579. Retrieved 13 May 2016 via Hamnet: Folger Shakespeare Library Online Catalog.